Design and fabrication of Canal top solar panel system

Canal top solar PV is an innovative idea that efficiently saves land and loss of water. It proposes an efficient administrative model for smart village, and irrigation of land.  Canal top PV system has better efficiency than ground mounted PV which increase overall life of system. The propo

Project Title

Design and fabrication of Canal top solar panel system

Project Area of Specialization

Mechanical Engineering

Project Summary

Canal top solar PV is an innovative idea that efficiently saves land and loss of water. It proposes an efficient administrative model for smart village, and irrigation of land.
 Canal top PV system has better efficiency than ground mounted PV which increase overall life of system. The proposed system benefits canal sustainability by producing energy from renewable sources, causing no danger to nature protected areas. With reduction in installation of canal top PV, they are expected to have large share in solar energy production. Large capacity canal top PV systems may provide faster and more economical solution to problem of energy shortfall in Pakistan.

Canal Top solar panels have been made but we are going to design such a structure that can hold the solar panel on the top of a canal and make it enable to rotate according to the direction of Sun.

Project Objectives

• Extracting solar energy using canal top solar PV panels.

• Design And Analysis of  Mechanical Structure using FEM Based Software.

• Rotation of Solar Panels on Canal Top (Increasing Efficiency)

° Prototyping of Canal top Sopar photoVoltaic system.

There were many challenges while designing this project and they were overcome through proper brainstorming, analyzing situations and possible outcomes while also keeping in the costs, durability, and reliability of components working in the Canal Top Solar Photo Voltaic System. So the best-suited components have been picked to meet the demand and conditions for the best design of solar panel tracking system.

Project Implementation Method

Project implementation method: 
3.1 Methodology: 

The methodology which we are using in our project is given below: 

3.1.1 Resource Assessment of target site:

a. Profile of place chosen

A rural community residing at a place called Setal Mari in District Multan, Punjab province in Pakistan istaken as a target site for canal top PV. Multan district has 4 Tehsils,534 villages and 4 towns. Population comprises of 42.2% in urban areas and 57.8% in rural areas. Most population relies on agriculture for its needs. Setal Mari is located at 30° 11' 19N and 71° 31' 47E. Grid and feeder’s data at District Multan are used for the load profile. Setal Mari average energy consumption is 3300kwh/day with 443kw peak load in July and 300kw in month of January. Fig.2 shows seasonal load profile of Setal Mari.

b. Solar irradiation and clearness index

Data of solar irradiation and clearness index of District Multan are acquired from NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) website. Solar irradiation of 5.67kWh/m2 /d makes this place ideal to extract solar energy using canal PV system.

3.2 Modeling:

We are using CREO 6.0 to model our structure. We are using truss structure for mounting the solar panels on the canal top. The reason for selecting truss structure is that a truss structure is made of straight building materials that are connected together at angles where adding a weight or pressure cause the joints and/or connections to compress and push against each other. This type of structure is particularly strong because it has a dynamic weight-bearing system.

In our structure two trusses are used. One is Major truss and second is Minor truss which are joined horizontally by a platform. The solar panels and motors are to mounted above the Major truss whereas the Minor truss is working here as the support for the platform.

Both truss are of equal lengths and covers the cross-sectional length of the canal.

3.3 Material Selection

3.4 Design of Project Hardware

Benefits of the Project

Solar power does not release any greenhouse gasses, and except for needing a source of clean water to function, it uses absolutely no other resources. Hence, it’s safe and environmentally-friendly. 

• It can also increase the domestic production of electricity as well as reducing loads on national grid stations. Starting from your home is a great way to show you care about the environment. With the increasing demand of solar energy, it is becoming easily accessible to most of the world. Across countries, there are vast space on canals that is far away from big cities or capitals and are not used for anything at all. Installing PV System would be worth investing on those Canals for abundant electricity.

• Solar Energy can be regarded as an unlimited source of energy because NASA already predicted that our Sun would not run out for the next 2 million years or so. Hence these qualities make Solar Energy to stand on top of every other resource.

• Industrial setups need much maintenance as they are quite a large scale, so this reduces human touch and labor force, as well as increasing the efficiency of the PV system also the life.

Canal top PV provide clean and green energy generation at the doorstep of farmers. Reliability and strength of grid is increased by generation at remote consumption centers. Costs of transmission and distribution are widely decreased. Canals mostly run through rural areas where there is less electricity available and more power outages, this system will provide uninterrupted supply of electricity enhancing lifestyle of local community.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

The technical details include prototyping of this project. We have decided to prototype this model by using 1 solar panel which is efficient enough to perform and carry out all the actions which are mentioned in our objectives.
This include:
1. Mechanical Body which holds the whole mechanism.
2. Image Processing which helps the camera to detect the sun.
3. Suntracking with LDR which is our secondary source of suntracking incase if camera doesn't works.
4. The linkage between these Mechanical and Electrical systems. 

Final Deliverable of the Project

HW/SW integrated system

Core Industry

Energy

Other Industries

Core Technology

Clean Tech

Other Technologies

Artificial Intelligence(AI)

Sustainable Development Goals

Affordable and Clean Energy

Required Resources

If you need this project, please contact me on contact@adikhanofficial.com